We all know that fertility has been on a catastrophic downward spiral for decades.
Obviously younger people need to start having more babies — lots more babies — and they need to start doing it quickly, or things are going to get even worse than they are.
But according to this recent paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there could be another looming crisis among younger demographics — one that isn't going to improve the situation at all:
The United States faces a prolonged life expectancy stall. ... Recent cohorts born since 1970 exhibit increasing mortality in cardiovascular disease, cancer, and external causes compared to their predecessors, implying continuation of poor mortality trends as they age.
In layman's terms, that means younger people are dying more young than older people. In other words, we've got a fertility crisis among younger generations and we've got several health crises among those same generations.
We've certainly known for some time that there are troubling health signs on the horizon for younger people:
But it's not just cancer. The causes driving higher mortality in young adults today are multifaceted, according to the study by the international team of researchers (citations removed):
[D]rug overdose deaths increased appreciably in the late 1990s and persisted through the end of the period. Among women, suicide mortality began worsening around 2000. By 2010, all birth cohorts were affected. Among men, change in suicide mortality appears patterned by both cohort and period with those born around 1950 representing a transition cohort. Homicides and traffic accidents show stark period increases in the 2010s.
So basically: Drug overdoses, murders, car accidents, suicides — all went up over the studied period for later demographics.
These numbers have helped drive the "recent stall in US mortality" observed at population levels, the researchers said.
Notably, the cohort born in 1950 enjoyed "a general improvement in mortality over cohorts born before and a general deterioration in mortality over cohorts born subsequently." (So the Boomers got to reap all the rewards of the 20th century and left none of those benefits for their descendants — typical Boomers!)
We've been hearing a lot of colon cancer rates skyrocketing among young people — a data point the researchers themselves observed:
[T]here appears to be a distinct cohort-based pattern in post-1970 birth cohorts with respect to cancer mortality. Notable is the pattern of colon cancer mortality, a cause strongly linked to obesity and dietary factors.
Among the proposed solutions the researchers suggest identifying "modifiable societal and lifestyle factors" which can help assist with "population-level interventions to reverse adverse trends." I think we all know what those "societal and lifestyle factors" are — basically you should eat better and move a little more — but it can't hurt to repeat that advice every now and then.
We need a turnaround in all of these numbers — and fast.
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